After going to one of the AmericaSpeaks community conversations Saturday, I’m even more confident that the deficit crisis being promoted by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, AmericaSpeaks, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and the Obama Administration, as well of much the world’s global elite is a fantasy. There is no truth to it, and it is a dangerous fantasy, because if one believes it, then that can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The austerity they recommend for the long-term can make the slow growth and difficult times they project come true. It can catch us all in a nightmare of their making. The “reasoning” behind their fantasy is simple enough.

The Congressional Budget Office just revised upwards the projected cost of the new health care law by $115 billion, a law written, supported, and sold to Americans by PhRMA and the for-profit hospitals. Until Congress is actually willing to take on these groups directly, we regular Americans will continue to get ripped off. . . and our deficit will continue to increase.

If there’s a social program left standing in the moonscape Obama’s Hamilton Project masters inflicted on America, Greenstone and the Project are there to ensure Obama nukes it. If someone you care deeply about depends on Social Security – or will depend on Social Security – call them up today and tell them you love them. Because Team Obama has targeted Social Security…and your loved ones are just the MOTU’s version of collateral damage. Deaths you can believe in, right?

“What’s the CBO score?” is one way to judge between competing health reform efforts, but hardly the best way. How about asking the questions raised by Faithful Reform in Health Care: how many lives will be saved, and how many jobs preserved?

The American people deserve an explanation on how and why this important consumer provision was almost gutted. The previously offered defense for the elimination of the ban on annual limits was not based in reality.

I wish for the day when legislation is written by our legislators and not by some unelected accountant. Because Senator Harry Reid wanted to make the CBO score look prettier he will allow insurance companies to waste an extra 10% of your premiums on not providing health care. All hail the almighty CBO.

The media is making a lot of hay about the CBO conclusion [PDF] that with its negotiated rates, the House’s public option will have premiums slightly higher than private insurance on the exchange. That estimate of enrollment reflects CBO’s assessment that a public plan paying negotiated rates would attract a broad network of providers but [...]

Several months ago, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf and Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) created a huge media hoopla when Conrad got Elmendorf to claim that the House health care bill would not “bend the cost curve.” Fast forward a few months, and Elmendorf has now taken a far more philosophical look at what “bend the cost” [...]